The walk back to Oakhaven as the sun rose was a quiet, bloody pilgrimage. Leo moved through the waking world like a ghost, his clothes in tatters, his skin caked with soot and dried gore that wasn't all his. The few early risers—the baker stoking his oven, a farmer heading to the fields—stopped and stared. They saw Kaelen, but not the Kaelen they knew. This one walked with his shoulders back, his gaze straight ahead, and the scent of a slaughterhouse clinging to him. They didn't mock him. They just got out of his way.
He reached his shack and barred the door, the simple wooden bolt feeling flimsy against the memory of teeth and claws. He leaned against it, finally allowing the full, bone-deep exhaustion to wash over him. He was safe. He was healed. He was rich.
He pulled up the Omni-Bazaar, the blue interface a comforting presence in the dim light.
[Nexus Points: 1,245.]
A week ago, this number would have felt like a dream. Now, after staring down a swarm and feeling death's breath on his neck, it felt… paltry. Insulting.
He browsed the lists again, no longer looking at the pipe dreams but at the tangible next steps.
[Enhanced Strength (Low-Tier) - 5,000 NP]
[Enhanced Speed (Low-Tier) - 5,000 NP]
[Chakra Coil Activation (Basic) - 8,000 NP]
[Reinforced Skeleton Lacing - 12,000 NP]
He couldn't afford a single one. Not without going back to zero. He had 1,245 points. He was still, for all intents and purposes, weak. His mind was a supercomputer, but his body was still a piece of junk hardware. He couldn't outthink everything. The next swarm might not be funneled into a nice, explode-able gully.
A dark, cold thought, smooth and logical as a river stone, presented itself.
The village.
His deductive reasoning ran the numbers without him even asking. Oakhaven had about three hundred souls. If even half were worth a modest 100 NP each… that was 15,000 points. More than enough. A well-placed poison in the well… it would be quick. Efficient. He could be gone by noon, powerful beyond measure, leaving a ghost town in his wake.
The math was clean. The morality was… irrelevant. He was a player in a new game, and these were NPCs. Weren't they?
Then his mind, traitorously, supplied an image. Not of Rolf or the other bullies, but of the old woman who ran the herb garden, who'd sometimes given the pitiful Kaelen a bruised apple when no one was looking. He saw the group of snot-nosed kids who played stick-ball in the dust, their lives a simple, uncomplicated drama.
Kids.
The cold logic shattered. "Damn it," he muttered, running a hand through his grimy hair. He wasn't a monster. Not yet, anyway. Mass murder for a quick power-up was… it was tacky. The system's voice echoed in his memory, dripping with disdain. Petty mercantile ambitions. This was worse. This was lazy.
No. There was another way. The beast raids. Kaelen's memories held a deep, village-wide fear of them. They weren't just packs of wolves. They were proper waves of monsters—Goblins, Trolls, worse things—that poured out of the mountains every few seasons. The entire village militia would mobilize. It would be chaos. A perfect hunting ground.
That's where he would get his points. Millions of them. He just had to survive until then, and get strong enough to farm the event.
A plan solidified. He would grind. He would hunt every night, carefully, building his strength point by point. And he would wait.
---
Days turned into a week, then two. The transformation of "Kaelen" became the village's favorite, bewildered gossip.
The beaten, half-starved orphan was gone. In his place was a young man who looked… healthy. His cheeks had filled out, his frame, while still lean, had lost its gaunt fragility. He moved with a new, easy grace that made people pause. He'd always been handsome in a way that made people uncomfortable; now, he was radiant. It was like watching a stained-glass window come to life.
He no longer scavenged for scraps. Rolf and his crew gave him a wide, fearful berth, the memory of their secrets laid bare still fresh. The village chef, a burly man named Borin, was particularly furious. He'd see Leo walking back from the woods at dawn, clean and composed, and mutter about "where that layabout gets the coin to eat so well." The truth—that Leo was buying perfectly cooked, albeit simple, meals from the system for a pittance of NP—was beyond his comprehension.
But the biggest change was in the attention from the women. Girls who'd once pitied him now stared with open interest. Older women looked at him with a knowing, appreciative glint. He'd catch them watching him from doorways, their whispers trailing after him like perfume.
It was every otaku's dream, right? To be the impossibly cool, desired guy. But the reality was exhausting. The stares were constant. The attempted conversations were inane. He couldn't think, couldn't plan his next hunt with a dozen pairs of eyes dissecting his every move.
He was trying to be Kakashi—mysterious, aloof, cool. But his natural personality, amplified by his new confidence and a complete lack of fucks to give, kept leaking through, coming out more like Gojo: arrogant, flippant, and utterly aware of his own superiority.
When Elara, the blacksmith's daughter—a woman Kaelen had considered a distant goddess—approached him one afternoon to "ask about his recovery," she was met not with stammering gratitude, but with a lazy, sidelong glance and a dry, "What's the matter? Run out of big, strong men to bother?"
She'd blinked, stunned, her cheeks flushing red. He'd just walked away, leaving her speechless.
It was after that incident, hiding in his shack from another round of lingering looks, that the solution came to him. Of course. Kakashi had the right idea, he just needed the right style.
He opened the shop, browsing the "Apparel" section. He found it under "Accessories."
[Basic Face Mask (Black) - 1 NP]
[A simple, comfortable cloth mask. No defensive properties. Pure aesthetics.]
He almost laughed. One point. The solution to his biggest social problem cost less than a piece of candy.
He purchased it. A simple, black, breathable mask appeared in his hand. He pulled it up, covering the lower half of his face, and looked at his reflection in a bucket of water.
The effect was instant. His striking features were now framed, his expression hidden. Only his eyes were visible—sharp, intelligent, and now, unreadable. It added an air of mystery the bare-faced Gojo routine lacked. It was a perfect blend. The hidden intensity of Kakashi with the underlying arrogance of Gojo.
He stepped back outside.
The difference was night and day. The stares were still there, but they were different. Less about his impossible beauty, more about the intriguing mystery. The whispers were more curious, less lustful. He could finally breathe.
He walked to the well, ignoring the looks, his mind already on the night's hunt. He had a little over two thousand points now, earned from careful, nightly traps and the systematic culling of the forest's edges. It was slow, steady progress.